5 thoughts on “Weekend Quickie #228”

“From which stars have we fallen, to meet each other here?” said Gareth, downing the last of his California Merlot.
“Why do you always quote Nietzsche after a merlot?” asked Darren, sitting with his own bottle of Louis Jadot Macon-Villages Burgundy.
“Because he was such a great influence on me. As is the merlot.” He fell off the log he sat on, preferring the softness of the grass in the clearing to have a little snooze.
“Justin!” said Darren, trying to get the attention of the third member of five in their little ‘coterie’ after watching Gareth for a while. Ashton had left for a pee some time ago and hadn’t come back, leaving his Mommessin Beaujolais cooling in the night air, whereas Kevin was knocked out, resting against a tall silver birch with an empty bottle of California Pinot Noir.
“Yes?” said Justin, opening one eye and sipping his Sonoma Coast Chardonnay.
“The tree. It’s full.” They stared at the centrepiece of their weekly soiree, a dead fir tree holding dozens of empty wine bottles from good times past.
“Well, bugger me sideways,” said Justin, checking the level of wine in his bottle.
“We already did that,” said Darren.

“We don’t allow just anyone to join out coterie, so what is this person doing here?” The hiss was a little too loud, he’d have heard if he wasn’t having that conversation near the food table.
“What are you talking about? This is a philosophy club. We talk about the great ideas.”
“This is by invitation only and nobody, but nobody told you to invite someone. Especially someone like that.”
“Oh, come on. He’s famous for his mixed media presentations.”
“I loathe all forms of modern sculpture. Especially a piece like the one in front of the new city hall.”
“It’s art.”
“It’s a dead tree trunk with bottles stuck on it. He probably got drunk out in the middle of nowhere and then sold it sight unseen to the committee. Do you know how much the township paid for that monstrosity?”
“What was it that Nietzsche said, what was that quote?” I could feel the tension in the air as he went caught my drift, “‘From which stars have we fallen, to meet each other here?’”
“We aren’t stars. We’re human beings. We don’t have to like each other.”
“Exactly.” I clapped him on the back and moved over to my friend.

“ From which the stars have fallen, to meet each other here. I ask you Dear Lord, please forgive us from all our sins?”
As our coterie, knelt by that was left of the wine filled elm. As one final plea for salvation before the sheriffs posse catches up to them.
“Dan is it wise that we quote Nietzsche in one last attend to save our lives?”
“And give me one good reason why we shouldn’t. As it is written God knows all, and sees all. By praying our plea shall be answered.”
“So if you say he sees all, he must have seen us rob the first national in El Paso ?”
“That remains to be proven. He’s only one man, how could he possibly sees every humans action at a given time. Now finish that last bottle of chardonnay, to complete our shrine.”
As the last bottle covered the last empty branch, a halo from above told them there prays had been heard.
A ruffle from the bushes due west signaled there location was no longer a secret. May God does sees all.

The Fix
Nausea and sweats hit me as soon as my eyes opened. Suspension from the force and
the looming Internal Affairs investigation was the least of my worries. Top of the list
was to get fixed.
“East 20s” I said, sliding into the back of a taxi
The driver glanced in his rearview mirror
“Carlton Arms” I growled in full sweat.
His eyes narrowed, but he pulled into traffic anyways.
A woman answered the door, cigarette on her lip, and holding a baby. I stepped in,
pushed a pile of clothes and toys aside on the sofa and sat. I tossed her the cash, and
she handed over two glassine envelopes. Blurry red letters spelling Kafka.
“Existential is it?” I mused.
“Whatever, it’s good shit” she shrugged, shifting the baby from one hip to the other
and flipped on the TV. An arts and crafts show explaining how to make a decorative
bottle tree; whatever that was.
I took my rig from next to my service revolver in my jacket and cooked up. I found a
vein. A euphoric explosion rushed up my arm, sweeping into my brain and out into
the room. Calm and contentment washed over me, over us. This unlikely coterie of
cop, dealer, and baby.
He chortled and drooled as I said Kafka…
As I spun the glassine envelope between my fingertips and the kid wriggled, delighted
by the movement but oblivious to the surrounding squalor bath in the glow of the TV.
“From which stars have we fallen, to meet each other here?” I thought to
myself.

A gentle breeze blew through the scrub of the western plain as a full moon loomed over an old abandoned farm. No one had lived at the farm for nearly twenty years but there it stood, barely weathering the elements.

Near the back door between house and garden, a bottle tree whistled its eclectic tune as the breeze explored various sized openings of the blue glass bottles hung on its manicured branches three decades ago.

If still and listening carefully, one might hear voices in conversation, whispering around the tree.

“From which of the stars have we fallen to meet each other here?”
“From far and wide, my fellow sprite. From far and wide, I fear.”
“How long, in days or months or years, have you been captive here?”
“Since sunset now I’ve been held within these traps austere.”

And out of the throats of the remaining ports came many a similar note.

“We’re all the same, from whence we came to when we got in here,
We moan and groan, but can’t get out, we’re trapped for life, we fear.”

As the sun began to rise, a cacophony of voices raised in crescendo, for when the sun’s rays flooded each blue dungeon, the sprite inside perished in a wisp of smoke, which mingled with the wind on its way across the scrub of the western plain.